Sultana
by Cantare
Summary: There are three things that have never been seen. A decade without war, a living settlement in the cursed Eighth Desert, and a woman ruling in her own right.
1. Chapter 1

The fourth week, she pulled the jeweled band from her hair and met her unadorned reflection in cold assessment. A blank pause where no titles or chains of power were visible, only the smooth flow of her hair around her shoulders and down her back. She methodically combed through the uneven curve left by the turquoise ornament she had worn since childhood. With water, then oil, and persistence it vanished. She reached for the diamond tiara, fashioned from the same rare, unbreakable crystal as her father's ring.

It was high noon when she seated herself upon the throne in the shadow of the golden elephant, carved two centuries past as the symbol of Agrabah's seat of power. She turned her gaze upon the court and watched the subtle cuts of realization across their eyes. Upon her pronouncement, they bent the knee as one, ministers, nobles, scribes, guards, many and nameless faces now schooled to submission. The familiar motion of deference did not stop where it always had, continuing forward to completion as foreheads touched the floor and stayed still.

She heard her new title murmured on a hundred voices, soft in an undecipherable mix of hesitation and reluctance. She addressed them in return, subjects and servants to obey her alone. Then she rose and approached the balcony, where the kingdom waited.

_There are three things that have never been seen. A decade without war, a living settlement in the cursed Eighth Desert, and a woman ruling in her own right._

_No one will step forth to crown you._

_Do it quickly, before it is too late._

She raised her arms and welcomed the vast silence before the tearing of the third seal.


	2. Chapter 2

Three days after she received the letter, scarcely a minute after Genie had returned from scouring the sea and the surrounding desert, she took Carpet there to search with her own eyes.

_Jas, it's impossible. Even I couldn't find a trace of them. The area's just too large._

She brushed the salt out of her eyes and spat brine. The grit of windblown sand caked her face and wove her hair into a brittle mess. As dawn broke Carpet finally slowed in the wake of her harrowed silence and loss of direction. Endless sea surrounded them on all sides. Not a sign of a body. Not even a piece of driftwood or cargo.

The water rushed up to meet her with the force of a rock wall when she slipped from the carpet.


	3. Chapter 3

"The names of his daughters?"

"Ilande and Firiyna."

"And Ilande's husband?"

The motion of his fingers through her hair stilled. A sigh, so slight she would have not have sensed it if he were not so close. She turned in the bath, hands brushing over foamy water to rest on his arms.

"I imagine we'll be introduced," he said shortly.

"I know what you're thin—"

"It isn't necessary to memorize the name and title and birthplace of every minor person I'm going to meet. You know that."

She met his unyielding gaze without retreating, but softened at the hurt behind his resistance. "I know. I just want you to be as prepared as possible. Ilande married Prince Humayl of Sarupura only after negotiations fell apart with Erias. There's a reason your visits to Liri and Erias are scheduled so far apart even though they're neighboring kingdoms. Now the sultan of Erias—"

"Has all but conceded authority to his power-hungry son. I remember." He cupped her face in his hands, running a thumb over her cheek. The tension of his touch said what he had grown tired of speaking aloud. _Trust me. Please._

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She leaned her head against his shoulder, holding him tight. His arms encircled her waist in return, and they listened to the rhythm of their breathing for a familiar span of silence.

Two months. Neither of them had ever been away from the kingdom or apart from each other for so long since their marriage. Aside from missing him terribly, she could not cast out the conceited fear that he would fail without her beside him. Her father's presence should be enough to establish Aladdin's credibility among the dozen odd kingdoms they would visit, but she had long stopped trusting that her father could handle even their allies without an army of viziers to refresh his memory constantly.

"Don't redecorate too much while I'm gone," he murmured against her hair. "I expect my chambers to be the way I leave them tomorrow."

She laughed lightly. "I'll only redecorate if I have good news."

The genuine smile on his face warmed her heart as he kissed her. She turned again in his arms and allowed him to resume combing through her hair, his other hand drawing slow circles over her stomach. She closed her eyes to the soothing touch of his fingers and tried to imagine away each small stranglehold of worry.


	4. Chapter 4

The first attempt on her life was from within the court, as she should have expected. The method was poisoned wine.

The guards were at her side seconds after she faltered, Genie a second after them. Her vision blurred and her pulse began to drag in a heavy march, the blows of a warhammer in her ears as the chaos around her dimmed.

Her eyes became her only voice as paralysis overtook her body, and she knew from her friend's face that they were screaming.

Not in fear of death. It was a given that she would live; she could not allow any other future. With the last of her strength she turned her head to the side, willing herself to spit out the remaining wine in her mouth. It dribbled from the corner of her lips and into her hair, forming a puddle against her cheek. She cursed herself that she could not purge all of it from her body at once, the vile taste of a coward's ambition and the even viler taste of a coward's arrogance. In the last moments of consciousness, all that coursed through her veins was rage. Pure unadulterated fury, driving her heart to lurch onward.

They thought to kill her with the simplest, most conventional weapon in the trade, as predictable as a knife thrown at her face. And she had nearly allowed them to succeed and seal her memory as the short-lived sultana who was fool enough to die so easily.

She would find the man who had dared to set the value of her enmity so low. And she would show him and all the others who would inevitably follow just how much her vengeance was worth.


	5. Chapter 5

Her ultimatum was met by a tittering laugh.

"Oh no, Princess, I do believe I have been overestimating you this entire time. What with the power of a jinni and the incredible gift of luck, I would expect you to have found your street rat and your dear father by now. Certainly without requiring _my_ help."

The response did not merit an answer. She motioned to Genie and the water elemental abruptly stopped laughing, trapped in a soundless bubble without oxygen. Dainty hands clawed at the inside of its surface, alarm and anger contorting her features.

"You know where they are," Jasmine stated. "You might prefer to take that knowledge to your grave. Perhaps I'll allow that."

She did not miss Genie's troubled glance and spoke before he could loosen the spell even slightly.

"Not yet."

She waited for the bluish tint to darken steadily on fair skin and for manicured fingers to claw at the throat instead of at the bubble's surface.

"Jas," Genie said in a strained voice.

"Now."

The mermaid collapsed in a boneless coil, choking on newfound air like a hooked fish thrown back into the sea. Jasmine waited.

The answer several times later was the same. Before they returned to dry land she ordered Genie to release the cephalopod so its mistress would not be unattended.

x.x.x

She read her friend's thoughts as clearly at that moment as any other. She had come to this – become this – only one week since the news.

What of two weeks?

A month?

Years?


	6. Chapter 6

"You are not telling me everything." Her stare was unblinking and arid as a brushfire, fixed on the guardsman at her bedside. He had been a loyal servant to her father and a begrudging enemy to her fiancé, though he would have had no choice but to serve the kingdom's first commoner sultan in time. Now he was one of a handful of men she could still trust. To defend Agrabah and bow to royalty – it was all he knew, but a sultana ruling from an infirmary bed could ask for little more.

Razoul dropped his gaze, trouble lining the dark mottled skin beneath his eyes, and knelt. Even then he towered above her weakened form.

She dragged herself up on her elbows and leaned back slowly against the wall, her head flooded with dizziness for the span of several labored breaths. Again she cursed the treachery of her body, her blood that had carried the poison too long and her limbs that would take another week to expel it fully. When the room had righted itself in her line of vision, her hands loosened on the sheets and settled calmly in her lap.

"Your Highness, you are still recovering and I thought it unwise to—"

"I know my own state of health," she said. "Tell me what your guards have seen."

An audible swallow and a shift of the knee. "Blasphemers and traitors, Your Majesty. Lowborn trash that slander your name in the marketplace and on hovel walls. My men have orders to apprehend and punish all who dare—"

"Those are not my orders." Her tone had not changed but the man seemed to hold his breath at what lay beneath it.

"Your Majesty, if I have—"

"You will not terrorize my people for speaking their minds," she said, and only she could hear the countering whispers in her mind, that punishment by mere guards was not nearly enough, that betrayal warranted a darker justice, one that she had been silently writing these days and weeks, preparing, knowing there would be days of judgment. She ignored them.

Razoul listened without interrupting again, murmuring his obedience to every command. His guards would arrest only those who acted in violence; the rest they would watch and hear and remember, and tell her of their discontent. She was still their sultana and she would listen and understand them. She would find the heart of her people again and memorize its pulse, what made it quicken and stall, what poisons could stop it cold and what remedies could heal it.

She sank onto her back when the guard left, a sickly drum hammering in her chest. She placed a hand over it, waiting for it to slow.


	7. Chapter 7

The old man and his sons were brought in chains before the throne. She studied them without expression, seeing for the first time the effects of nine days of starvation in a sunless cell.

"My father counted you as a close friend," she spoke, breaking the hushed silence of a hall awaiting her sentence. "He listened to your counsel for many years. He told me you and your kin had been invaluable in supporting his marriage to my mother."

The scribes were glancing at each other between strokes of the pen, recording every word against their uncertainty. Perhaps they and the rest of her audience had expected fury. A rage rivaled only by the relentless pounding of blood in a half-healed body. They were blind.

"When I was ten you gave me a jeweled brush for Rajah," she continued. "And soon after, one of your daughters was allowed to attend my literature lessons. She was a poor student. I pitied her and pretended to enjoy her company."

She stood, hands resting gently on the sides of the throne, fingertips barely brushing the embellished patterns in the metal. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Razoul begin to move forward in concern, but a wave of her hand and he was still. She walked down the carpeted steps slowly as if in deliberation, eyes never leaving the three men brought here for her judgment. Gaunt faces and parched tongues gaped at her, almost too delirious to feel fear. She looked down upon them and thought of beaten dogs, left to die in dust and refuse.

"You are still invaluable to the throne," she said. She heard the scratches of the scribes slow in surprise, and the collective questions building in the rows of masks around her. They were less blind now, hearing her purpose, acutely aware that they were her audience.

"You have shown me a truth my father never taught me: trust no one."

The lines of age and deprivation in the patriarch's face deepened, a shade of shame covering his wizened figure. One of his sons stared blankly ahead, licking his cracked lips without any moisture on his tongue.

"In payment for your service, I will grant you relief from your thirst."

She motioned to the guards. A bottle was brought forth and she poured them wine in three finely crafted glasses. She ordered their chains to be loosened. The court watched in silence as they drank greedily, hands trembling as if in gratitude, emaciated bodies soon seized in throes of ecstasy. The precious liquid dribbled from their mouths, thick and dark on the throne room carpet, throats closing tight and eyes wide and red.

She calmly ascended the steps and seated herself on the throne once again, ending her audiences for the day.


	8. Chapter 8

She turned to her old enemies now that the veil had been lifted. A stubbornly obsessive Greek inventor, a self-proclaimed inheritor of the greatest minds of Greece, a weak pathetic man who was as mentally unsound as he was narrowly brilliant. A fat bumbling thief and his questionably loyal advisor, aspiring to take over her kingdom with no vision for their own future beyond tomorrow, let alone Agrabah's. An oversized serpent with an ego as large as the lush forest he claimed was rightfully his, clinging to a blood vendetta against a single foe and foolishly eager to traverse the entire world to fulfill it. The list went on – sorcerers and elementals, ghouls and bandits, even gods and goddesses. She knew they would come, that they would see Agrabah as ripe for the taking without a hero, that they as all others still underestimated her and remembered only a princess, not a sultana.

For the first, she chose a preemptive strike. She knew everything she needed to know – the location of his home, the defensive and offensive methods he commonly used, and his blatant weakness of fearing all forms of disorder. It took one short journey in the middle of the night to the quiet green hills of Greece. Genie removed him from his bed and cast him to the grass, deep in slumber under a spell. Then he lifted the elegant marble house from its foundations and threw it into the sea. They returned to Agrabah with the inventor still asleep and in chains. He was placed in a solitary cell in the darkest corner of the dungeons, where she expected the rapid loss of his remaining sanity would eliminate the remaining threat in him.

For the second, she posted a reward in the Thieves' Guild, a promise of a sum beyond any petty criminal's imagination for the capture of Abis Mal and his advisor. Within a week they too were delivered to the dungeons and kept in separate cells. The man who had turned them in was well-known by the guards as a talented thief who had murdered two of his victims. She gave him the promised amount in gold in three enormous chests that required a dozen men to carry, and told him he had an hour to depart the palace with it before her men would give chase. Two hours later he was thrown in the same cell as Haroud, the pouches of gold that had weighed him down given to the families of those he had killed.

For the third, she called on Queen Hippsodeth of Galafem and requested a contingent of warriors to train with her guards in Agrabah for a year. They brought half a dozen winged horses with them, patrolling the perimeter of the city each day. The day the snake returned, he was met first with spears from the city walls, one wing pierced clean through, and the Galafemmes finished the task with poisoned arrows from their mounts. The ordeal took less than fifteen minutes.

More enemies would inevitably come. She was armed with all she needed to defeat them. A powerful jinni no longer hindered by his greatest flaw of wasteful mischief. Capable warriors under an ally she respected, a woman who had loved her father unconditionally and saw her as a daughter. Empty prison cells waiting to be warmed by shackled bodies. And her own mind, honed to perfect clarity with the simplicity of purpose.

She was not afraid. But it was not fear that had crippled her before. It was pity. Without it, the path ahead was unobstructed, however perilous and narrow.


	9. Chapter 9

She watched him kneel and look into the child's eyes, one hand resting solidly on a thin sunburned shoulder. The boy fought valiantly not to quaver under the steady gaze of the city's hero, the man who had effortlessly caught him in thievery within seconds of the act.

The pouch of gold was insignificant, a fraction of the cost of their daily meals alone. Aladdin handed it back to her without turning, and she held it loosely in one palm, weighing its worth in the boy's nervous glances.

"That was the wrong thing to do," he said, voice low and stern. The child did cringe then, trembling in stunned fear. She would have spoken for him if it were not already clear what he would receive for his crime.

_I have had nothing to eat for days; do you know what it feels like to starve?_

_My friends are counting on me for food; one of them is sick and we need the money for medicine._

_I am only following my master's orders; he is a cruel man and I don't want any more scars. _

_This is all I know to do. How else can I live?_

A stuttered apology had barely passed his lips when Aladdin's unyielding countenance broke into a smile, and there was no mistaking the compassion there, the knowledge of exactly what it was like for a child to suffer, hungry and alone.

"I've been doing this way longer than you, kid," he said as confusion spread across the boy's face. "And that was just bad form. Let me show you how it's done."

She laughed when the pouch of gold seemed to appear magically in his hand; she had hardly felt its weight leave her palm. The boy stared wide-eyed at them both, even more dumbstruck than before.

She left them alone for a while and waited outside his hovel as the two of them talked, wondering at his way of changing the hearts of children and hardened enemies alike, warmed by the steadfastness of his faith.

Her father had once questioned him about his willingness to forgive their enemies, even the most unrepentant, those who posed the greatest threats to their city, and what it would mean for the kingdom when its future sultan ruled with mercy over justice. His answer was simple, blatantly naïve in the eyes of anyone who had walked the world, but the utter conviction in his words had been enough to convince her then.

_At heart, they are all like that child who wants what is not theirs. The right thing to do is to lead them to want something better, and to be ready to give it to them when they finally realize it._


	10. Chapter 10

She gave abrupt orders for the palanquin to stop. Razoul looked at her questioningly as she stepped out unaided, waving off the guards who moved to block her from the masses milling around them. In seconds the entire section of the marketplace around them quieted, all movement halted save for those who were late to bow.

For a moment she stood staring at the faceless crowd of men, women and children prostrate in her presence, foreheads and palms pressed against the dust of the ground. She opened her mouth to speak and found her own voice strangely alien despite its practiced tone.

"Please rise."

In the disbelieving silence, no one moved. Somewhere to her far left a toddler wailed, but the sound quickly died. She walked forward alone, again commanding her guards not to follow her. They hesitated, torn against the fiber of their duty, but in the end they obeyed her express orders instead. She stepped around the clusters of bodies, careful not to tread on threadbare robes and worn shawls. A young girl coughed as she passed, and Jasmine caught a glimpse of her mortified face before she buried it in her sleeve, not daring to look up.

She knelt and touched the girl's shoulder, repeating herself loud enough for others to hear. The girl managed not to flinch from her hand and seemed to drag herself upright against her will, eyes still lowered to the ground when they stood at the same height. Jasmine moved on, and slowly those she passed rose to their feet, still tense with indecision.

A semblance of normalcy had been restored by the time she arrived at the familiar row of stalls, the rusted collections of cooking utensils and crude earthenware, the bags of flour and spices, the baskets of nuts and figs, the carts piled high with fruit. She stopped at the last one, where the merchant made to bow again and paused at her command. She studied the gleam of sunlight on each polished apple, how bruised and mottled skin was dull and lightless beside the healthy red. The laughter of children broke the nervous murmurs around her as two young boys dashed across her path, almost knocking into her in their single-minded joy. She smiled at them as the older one noticed her, and did not falter when their laughter suddenly stopped.

She took an apple from the cart, a deep red one without blemish, and knelt so that she could speak with them face to face. As she reached forward, offering the fruit, the taller boy quickly shoved the other behind him with a hissed warning. She bit the inside of her lip invisibly and felt the dust and grit against the thin fabric covering her knees.

"Here," she said softly, and reached for his hand. The boy shook his head and backed away, stumbling into his friend as the latter broke into a run.

She straightened slowly when both of them were gone and returned the fruit to its cart. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she moved toward the shade of the canvases, the faint taste of blood on her tongue.


	11. Chapter 11

_My warriors know the air and the land but not the water; we will not be able to help you in this endeavor._

_It looks like she just disappeared, Jas. No luck in finding her yet._

She stared at the maps laid out on the table, covered with formless blue alongside the dull gold of the Seven Deserts. The sea began at the harbor of Desrial and spread narrowly toward the southwest. Small bodies of water dotted the landscape, a salt lake far to the south and some well-known oases controlled by the richer trade kingdoms. For lands where water was supposedly scarce, it should have been easy to find the elemental. She had never concealed her presence before.

Jasmine tapped her fingers against the scrolls, thinking. Saleen was not the only enemy who seemed to have gone into hiding. Word had spread fast of the new permanent prisoners in Agrabah's dungeons, and perhaps she had already done enough to deter further attacks on the city. But the fact remained that threats were still real and many, merely proliferating beneath her line of sight instead of in the open.

Guards and Galafem warriors patrolled the streets and borders day and night, searching out enemies from within. Genie and specially trained forces combed the surrounding cities as far as Staaris, gauging the sentiments of foreign rulers still largely silent toward Agrabah since its first sultana had taken power. The poison of rebellion had already begun to spread among her own people, regardless of the measures she had taken; it was only a matter of time before outsiders would reveal their game as well. She would have to be ready when they did.

The maps remained static beneath her stare, the patches of blue firmly holding their secrets. Absently she traced the borders of the deserts, jagged and fluid in equal parts, the edge of her nail following the lines until they darkened to black. Her hand slowly came to rest over the charcoal spill of the territory marked with only one name. A deeper unknown than the sea, and just as silent.

The key to her victories was simple. Seek the point of greatest weakness; kill with precision.

It was different, she realized, when an enemy's weakness was exactly where his power lay.


	12. Chapter 12

She weighed the exquisite parchment and the beautiful script of the first suitor's letter as the ambassador spoke. His kingdom was renowned for its centers of learning, producing countless ministers and scholars and scribes for foreign courts. The king's calligraphy was said to be without equal, as was his gift for poetry. The thick gilded tome of his verses was wider than her throne and required two men to lift.

Beneath the flawless lines of praise and adoration and unconditional declarations of love was the taste of an unconditional threat, a layer of poison settled in the dregs of dark wine.

From her window she watched the extravagant train of the king's messengers retreat into the horizon. After the sun set, she lit a small fire to read by, fueled through the night with fine parchment and gold.


	13. Chapter 13

"With your leave, Your Majesty, we will prepare to entertain Sultan Thamir at the end of the month. He has not specified the date of his arrival, but we should expect him to stay several days."

"Oh, yes, of course," her father said distractedly amidst the clattering of glass figurines on the throne room floor. His voice was harder to hear through the curtain as he bent to retrieve them. Jasmine tried to shift closer without giving away her presence in the small enclave behind the door. She kept her breathing shallow and light, straining to hear each insinuation in the vizier's cultured voice.

"He has expanded Pragaal's borders to the northern bend of the Durya since he assumed power. The birthright of his ancestors, he claims. He has taken all of it by force."

Jasmine did not know of this sultan or his kingdom, and she did not care to know more. But Jafar continued to elaborate on the man's conquests nonetheless, and she sought in vain for the reason.

Her father did not interrupt or show any sign of acknowledgment. She only heard the clinking of glass and porcelain between the vizier's words. Finally the latter paused and seemed to wait for a response. There was nothing.

Jafar coughed. "Perhaps Your Majesty might prepare a celebratory feast to congratulate the sultan on his victories, before the true negotiations begin."

The tinkling of glass stopped. A sigh, weighted with doubt. "She is still too young."

Jasmine kept her hands at her sides, fingers curling into the soft fabric of her clothes instead of the curtains in front of her. It was as if she had stumbled blind into a pit of thorns, the truth bleeding forth rapidly, unraveling her breath.

"In a father's heart, a daughter should never come of age." The vizier's voice was clinical, almost distasteful in its aloofness. "But a princess is never too young."

She shook her head vehemently, biting her lip hard as if she could stop the vile man from speaking further. She longed to clap her hands over her ears and run back to the quiet peace of her chambers, but she had to stay and learn. Jafar rarely spoke such barefaced truth; she had to know if it would sway her father any more than his shadowed lies.

"Sultan Thamir is a man of power and cunning, and yet to reach his prime. A union will be most beneficial to Agrabah, Your Majesty. I am told that his only weakness is youthful beauty. There is little question he—"

"That is enough," her father said, almost too softly to hear.

She could see nothing in the darkness, but knew Jafar had bowed his head, deferring to the sultan's direct command. Her hands slowly loosened from the fabric, and she found they were trembling.

"Agrabah is not a conquered land, and Jasmine is not the Durya. My daughter will not be given over as the spoils of war. Thamir may keep his power. And Jasmine will see no suitors this year. She is too young."

She did not trust herself to breathe. Slowly she tilted her head back to rest against the wall behind her, face lifted toward the dark ceiling, and closed her eyes.


	14. Chapter 14

The edge of her swords made hardly a sound as she practiced the familiar form before sleep. Time was lost; there was nothing but the gleam of metal and controlled breaths, striving for a silence equal to the blades. The balcony was a cage of cold marble and moonlight, enough to envision an invisible enemy and initiate his end.

The twin scimitars were her choice weapon, though Queen Hippsodeth had suggested others. Perhaps a single blade, straight and light, so that one hand might be free to defend. Or a short dagger, easy to conceal and quick for the kill. She would learn them in time. For now, the grip of a sword in each hand was what she needed, a natural balance as extensions of her own body. She moved and breathed through them, felt the air around them and cut through it with the slightest turn of her will.

_You should not go alone._

The queen's advice was truth. Her skill with blades, however sharp, was not enough. She could not go alone. Yet she could not sit idly and wait.

There were many things she could not have done. She had done them. It was a matter of circumstance and will when the next impossibility would fall.


	15. Chapter 15

"A wise ruler does not meet his enemies on a battlefield. He finds other enemies to fight for him. And so he reduces the strength and number of his foes, thus winning the war without bloodshed or cost to his people."

Jasmine was slowly growing accustomed to the sage's deep accent, nuanced and rhythmic in the way of the far east. At her father's invitation, the philosopher had traveled nearly a year to come here and instruct his successor in the history and thought of the world beyond the Seven Deserts. The three of them had begun taking walks in the garden at the tutor's suggestion, exchanging the enclosed privacy of the library for open air and a view of the sky. Aladdin's first lesson had been about the sky; without explanation, they had been told to meet at dawn to watch the sun rise, and to spend most of the day in silence and solitude, merely observing the slow shift of clouds and impermeable blue above until it slowly darkened to the violet of dusk and was swallowed by night. _Behold__the__universe__unmoved__by__man,_ was his only reply when they asked for the meaning of the exercise.

"A good ruler turns his enemies into friends," Aladdin said, walking along the edge of the fountain beside them.

The philosopher's pace was slow and considerate, his frail hands tucked into voluminous sleeves. He smiled at his student's stubborn challenge. "A ruler may be good, but I am afraid even a good man with power will find himself a lonely man. May friends truly be found among those who sit upon thrones?"

Jasmine enjoyed listening to their debates, the man's easy manner removing any sense of contest from his words. He favored questions instead of statements, directing the flow of conversations seamlessly toward some quiet, profound revelation.

"They're rare," Aladdin acknowledged. "But it can happen. I've done it."

"As a hero you have accomplished this, so I have heard," the sage countered. "But as a king? Have you yet felt the confines of the throne, first on the body, then on the mind, and at last on the spirit?"

"Eh, I never really saw myself as the scepter-waving throne room type of sultan."

Aladdin jumped down from the fountain rim, turning to face them and walking backwards with a teasing grin. Jasmine almost scolded him for the display of rudeness toward such a distinguished teacher, but the latter went on without the slightest hint of offense.

"Indeed, perhaps you might choose to reign from atop a flying carpet or amidst the benevolent magic of a jinni," he said, his aged smile deepening with the wealth of knowledge few lived long enough to possess. "But the throne is not the place of greatest comfort, is it? Nor is it for sitting, or any form of rest."

"It is the seat of power and authority," Jasmine spoke, echoing the words of allegiance royal guards recited in their service. "From which honor and prosperity flow to the people, and justice and wrath to the sultan's enemies."

"So it is said," the man said serenely. "Where might mercy or comfort be found, then?"


	16. Chapter 16

The second suitor visited under the guise of friendship. They had been friends once, and perhaps he still accorded her some measure of fondness. The ease with which he swept through the streets of her kingdom, captivating the masses with a sunlit smile and the jubilant festivity of a homecoming, and strolled into her palace with the warmest of greetings for even the lowliest servant, confirmed the truth of the matter in her mind. With flawless timing the last of his momentum brought him before her throne, where he fell silent at the meeting of their eyes. She did not rise to her feet or speak, waiting for the inflection point to pass.

He bowed his head and knelt with the gravity of a soldier to his queen, deliberately upending the balance of their positions as only the sultan of Desrial could. She fought the urge to laugh and continued to wait. He began by declaring his intent in a voice of admiration and daring intimacy for all his retinue and her court to hear. As he finished she stepped forth from the throne, beckoning him to rise and bowing to him in turn.

Pleasantries flowed under well-worn smiles and seasoned practice over two extravagant meals and an extended tour of the palace grounds. She waited until the first cracks appeared in that seamless façade, the telltale signs of royal impatience beginning to show through, before allowing him to see her alone. It was near midnight and his face was flush with wine, though his eyes were sharper than she recalled, his handsome face growing solemn with purpose and a map of transactions.

"I've waited for you," was the first thing he said. "All these years, first for you to come of age, then tormented by an impossibility when you found someone else. But now…"

Her smile grew crisp and cold in the moonlight. "But now?"

He pulled her close, hands gentle and warm against her face, and she allowed the kiss as another flattering promise. He was young and strong, proud and confident in the unwavering prosperity of his kingdom, a bastion of stability in the roiling storms of the Seven Deserts. He was offering this to her, to extend Desrial's shadow over Agrabah through whatever trials might come. He was offering himself, the partial truth of his affection and alliance, and the heat between their lips was only a hint of what he would give her, even tonight if she so desired.

She drew away with a ghost of regret, and looked into the cool expectation of his eyes.

"Nothing's changed, Raeven," she whispered.


	17. Chapter 17

The sun was nearly set when she found him at the edge of the city, leaning against a precarious beam of wood on the roof of an abandoned house. He stood with his arms folded, watching some distant part of the horizon, not looking down though she was clearly in his line of sight.

Perhaps she should have felt angry. Some hint of betrayal, the cloying need to blame. Instead there was a sinking weight, sharp edges digging into her stomach and spindles in her lungs when she took a long breath and ascended the stairs.

"Aladdin."

He turned after a long moment, arms loosening from their rigid stance to hold her in an absent embrace. She rested her head against his shoulder, gazing past the scattered rooftops to the city wall, decrepit and crumbling in this quarter of the kingdom. Beyond it there was desert, and in the distance a storm was building.

"It isn't like you to run anymore."

The warmth of his body seemed to draw away slightly before he turned to her and acknowledged the trap. She saw everything in his eyes as always, never a facet hidden. The transparence of his soul was a rare and costly thing, and she spoke to it directly.

"If this isn't the life you want, then keep going. I won't stop you," she said, tracing the contour of fading sunlight against his face. "But if this is what you want. If you still want to marry me. Then stop running."

She stayed his wrist with a firm but gentle grip as he reached up to touch her hair. Love had never been a question. But it had become a distraction in this new arena in their lives. There were more weights on the scale now, heavier and more devastating if they fell. The expectations of a kingdom, sober and scrutinizing, never satisfied, endlessly forgetting. Responsibilities as binding as death, woven into their wedding vows. The fair-eyed days of their youth were over. There was much more to live, more depth and breadth and pain, but nothing good was won without sacrifice. He knew this. There was little time left to accept it.

He spoke the expected promise then, and she continued to wait without answering. He knew as well that she had not followed him here for old words.

"We're in this together," he said after a pause. "I'm not turning back."


	18. Chapter 18

It was the first time she had ever seen the queen falter. The messenger's mount all but collapsed on the stone steps of the palace, pushed to the limits of its strength as its rider leapt from its back and knelt before her sovereign.

"Your Majesty," the warrior said, tense with anger, "Galafem has been attacked. Isagoras. He's betrayed us. Scara is dead."

Jasmine was a shadow at the queen's side as she swiftly rallied her fighters, ordering them to leave at once for their country, ahead of her. She spoke with Razoul of what remained to be done among the city guard, the hardened steel of her voice belying the regret of leaving Agrabah before she had accomplished what she had promised. She gathered her own sparse belongings from the spacious guest chambers in the palace, and finally turned to Jasmine for a brief farewell.

"Take some of my men with you," Jasmine urged. "Agrabah will fight by your side as you have stood by ours."

Hippsodeth was shaking her head before she even finished. "No. This is not your battle. And you will need all your men to guard your own kingdom. I am sorry I cannot help you any longer. You must be wise and watchful, Jasmine. Trust no one in the coming months. Betrayal comes like a thief in the night."

She should have spent more time with the queen, should have learned everything she could teach her about how to lead, how to fight, how to stand when the ground beneath her thinned to spider's webs. Her throat tightened in a knot of all she did not know.

"Thank you for everything you have done for us," she said.

"For you, daughter," Hippsodeth said, stern voice softening. "You were born to rule. Do not let anyone take that away from you."

Jasmine watched from the balcony until the queen and her winged horse disappeared into the darkening sky. She closed her eyes and stood a while longer, trying to force the countless new contingencies and answering measures in her mind into a semblance of order. She had not thought it possible to feel such sudden and complete isolation a second time.


	19. Chapter 19

To catch a thief in the night, she needed to stay awake and keep watch. To trust no one, she could ask no one to keep watch in her place.

She welcomed the cool air on her balcony, the cold metal of the blades in her hands. She practiced the forms again and again until they were ingrained in her limbs. Other nights she stood patient and still, watching the stars and sickle moon. The departure of the queen had not stirred her enemies as she had thought. Perhaps the only ones who remained were those more patient than she.

So she fought their invisible forms long into the night, anticipating and parrying and striking until her movements drifted into half-sleep. They made their appearance then, in the fog of waking dreams. Faceless men with drowned eyes and waterlogged clothes, their pale distended flesh insensate and bloodless when she slashed at them. They wavered and swayed around her, drawing nearer as a slowly collapsing wall. She awoke the second they reached her with their outstretched hands.

She fell to her knees, vision flashing, and hissed in pain. The swords clattered to the floor, one blade rimmed faintly with blood. She closed her palm tightly, forcing the cut to widen, and her fingernails appeared as sharp red smiles.

x.x.x

The fifth suitor's letter arrived without ceremony. She could not feel the parchment through the bandage on her hand. There was no profession of love, no gilded promises, no fawning praise. The message was stark and simple, the first truth she had received from a foreign enemy since she had taken the throne.

Slowly she drew her scimitar across the words, slicing apart the prince's titles and bold threats. She sent the envoy back with such a reply.


	20. Chapter 20

"Prince Tessur is not like the others, Sultana. He will not hesitate to bring his armies upon us for this offense. For the sake of the kingdom, we advise that you send a peace offering and reconsider his proposal."

The fear in their eyes carried a nearly tangible putrid scent. She surveyed the room of her advisors, men who had cautioned reserve and timidity and all but abdication since she had assumed power.

"It is not a proposal," she said. "It is a threat. Threats do not warrant a peace offering or reconsideration of any crazed scheme for the conquest of Agrabah."

The man who had spoken shook his head. "He is not like the others," he repeated. "Recall the fate of Lasseri and Ucija. They refused to give their daughters to the sultan's harem, and neither kingdom still stands today. Prince Tessur is by all accounts worse than his father. The senile old man no longer has the reins to control his son and the eighty thousand Eriasans who fight for him. We fear that if you do not rescind your—"

"Ilande refused him, and Liri still stands. There is nothing to fear. Tessur is a mongrel delighting in the sound of his own bark."

"Your Highness, Agrabah is not Liri. Humayl and the forces of Sarupura are its shield, and the sultan's repute in battle goes before him. But Agrabah has no—"

"Agrabah has no sultan," she finished for him.

She watched each face school itself into noncommittal neutrality with seasoned practice, but the masks were still thin as paper.

"Agrabah has no sultan," she said again. "It needs no sultan to defend it, and no gluttonous foreign prince will threaten his way onto my throne. Should the fear of his bravado overwhelm you, I will gladly release you from my service. If you insinuate that I cannot defend this kingdom again, I will release you immediately."

Silence needled the air. They bowed as one, retreating before her command. Their wizened shoulders were still tense with unspoken protests, their breaths rife with fear of the wrong ruler. Her palm throbbed as she swept out of the room without another word. She realized belatedly that the wound had reopened and bled through the bandage.


	21. Chapter 21

For a frozen moment it was as if the skin of her palms had fused with the metal of the throne. The guard's voice burned with rage, his message echoing within disbelief and terrible numbness.

_Your Highness, the captain has been murdered._

_The captain has been murdered._

There was blood on Hakim's tunic. The blood of his captain, the man who had commanded the royal guard as long as she could remember, who had served her father with ruthless loyalty, who had stood at her right hand without faltering once when myriad others had fallen away.

"How?" she asked hollowly.

"We found him near the west outer wall. He suffered many knife wounds, most of them in the back. An ambush by at least three men. He could not have fallen otherwise."

He would not have fallen. If he had not been caught off guard, he would have lived, he would have put down his attackers and hauled them bound and half-dead through the city to the palace to face her justice. He would have stood firm and deflected her alarm, turned her concern to fury toward her enemies.

But there was no deflection now, only the stark crimson of truth. She had been poisoned once, and saved by the edge of a miracle. Razoul had drawn the royal guard up as a living shield around her then, sparing nothing to keep her safe, far from assassins' blades and traitors' wine. How many more attempts had been made on her life, unbeknownst to her? How many had infiltrated the palace with the single-minded purpose of her death, and failed to cross the wall of his men?

And having failed to reach her, how many had banded together on the streets against her defenders instead? Or was it the work of foreign spies, sent to sow dissension and fear among her people?

"Bring him to me," she ordered.

She knelt beside the low table where the guards had carefully laid their captain's body, wrapped in a thick shroud. At her command they unveiled the sight of his bloodied, mangled corpse, and she saw for herself how he had died. There were several deep stab wounds in his vital areas, crisscrossed by more than a dozen long superficial slashes running the width of his shoulders and waist. They had been made by a scimitar, at deliberate leisure after he was already dead.

Hakim reached forward instinctively to stop her from touching the corpse, but she cared nothing for prohibitions of uncleanness or superstition. Her hand rested gently on Razoul's shoulder as she whispered a silent prayer, condemning herself for bringing this upon him. It had taken his death for her to realize the nature of the enemy she faced, her overconfidence and her blindness.

In another breach of what was known, she presided over the funeral herself, reciting the rites with the new guard captain standing solemnly at her side, and watched dry-eyed as the white shroud was lowered into unmarked earth. The graves of royalty and nobles and commoners alike surrounded them, lost and nameless in death.

"Hakim," she said softly, without condition. "This will not happen again."


	22. Chapter 22

The scouts' reports were as her councilors had warned. The prince's soldiers were moving slowly but surely toward Agrabah. She did not fear him. He hid behind his wall of fighting men and sent assassins to do his dirty work. He believed she was weak, that a human army was all it would take to intimidate her into submission or overrun her kingdom altogether.

She had thus far kept Genie out of the public eye and avoided asking him for help unless she had no other choice. It would not do for the people to believe that a jinni's magic was the only reason she could hold onto power. But now she needed him to act.

She would send him to seek out the camp of the vanguard and infiltrate it at night. He would melt their weapons to slag, destroy all of their provisions and drive their war horses and pack animals into a blind frenzy. He would continue to incapacitate every troop that followed in a similar fashion if Prince Tessur did not turn his army around. Not a drop of blood would be shed if her enemy simply could not fight, no matter how great his numbers.

Her friend set out on his mission with grim confidence. She had not missed the look of relief on his face, though he had tried to hide it quickly, when she had detailed her plan. He had long been afraid of her, afraid of what she was willing to do and how close she might force him to killing another living being again. She did not leave herself time to think about it, adhering to solid facts instead of dwelling on unnecessary possibilities. There was no need for violence, so she would not act in violence.

He did not return when she expected. Several days after he should have struck, the vanguard passed through a small town that was a frequent stop for Agrabanian traders and razed it to the ground. Her scouts confirmed that the soldiers were well-armed and had full possession of their provisions and animals. They were unable to find Genie.

After a second town had been ransacked and destroyed, Genie finally arrived back at the palace. Her gratitude for his safe return quickly faded as she saw his power was nearly depleted. Tessur's armies were guarded by a mukhtar's magic, undetectable and immensely potent. It had effectively killed Genie's power once he had drawn close to the camp, and he did not know when he would fully regain it. There had been no sign of the mukhtar himself. The betrayal showed in Genie's eyes, a deeper drain on his spirit than the crippling effects of the spell.

Betrayal had indeed come like a thief in the night. For the first time since the day she had scoured the sea for a truth she could not find, she felt her lungs become leaden stone, despair looming as a solid wall too thick to break and too high to climb. Tessur had planned this carefully, first striking at the head of the royal guard and her personal security, then neutralizing her chief weapon and trump card. He had known she would depend on Genie, that she had no other method of defeating him now that Galafem was embroiled in its own war.

She desperately needed Genie to recover, to be able to defend her people somehow, even if he could not engage the enemy. Or she needed to replace him with another ally. But no human could stand in his place. Eden too would weaken and fall before the mukhtar's spell. She briefly thought of Sadira, who might be able to fight if her sand magic were not affected by the block. But she had little experience in battle, and her control of her magic was tenuous at best. She would not stand a chance against tens of thousands of soldiers.

She could not stop the army advancing on her kingdom. She could not stop it from wreaking destruction on all in its path that had enjoyed the favor of Agrabah. Her men were too few to mount a proper defense, already spread too thin within the city walls and missing the leadership of their long-serving captain.

Her mind raced through her remaining options, pitifully few and flawed.

_…even a good man with power will find himself a lonely man. May friends truly be found among those who sit upon thrones?_

_Have you yet felt the confines of the throne, first on the body, then on the mind, and at last on the spirit?_


	23. Chapter 23

She pinned the last ornaments into her hair and opened the vial of perfume. A scent she had worn only once before, now unearthed as a rose from burial.

Genie was distraught, begging for her forgiveness, in despair over what she had to do. But he could not beg her to stay, because there was no other choice.

Before she left, she turned to him, her question soft and without condemnation.

_The first wish you granted him. Did he ever consider a different way? _

x.x.x

Under cover of darkness she arrived unnoticed at the palace, navigating the vast grounds and innumerable towers before she found the sultan's quarters. The balcony was high and wide, grander and more embellished than her own in Agrabah. Carpet glided toward it with caution as she watched for guards. There were none.

She stepped from soft fabric onto stone, the thin soles of her shoes providing no barrier from the cold. At the other end of the marble floor was a gracefully carved arch, a curtained doorway lit warmly from within. Behind her, Carpet withdrew hesitantly, half-invisible in the dark.

For a moment she did not move forward, fixed in the river of time and inverted memory. Closing her eyes, she turned to face the measureless black beyond the balustrade. Once there had been another balcony, another soul concealed beneath fine clothes and promises. Another sacrifice of truth.

The lights on the palace grounds were dim and there was no moon, the darkness swallowing all space before her. Her grip tightened on the balustrade as an unnamed sickness beckoned her forward, whispering promises of rest and closing.

She felt the gentle breeze of Carpet circling her, the tug of a tassel on her arm. Slowly, as one coming out of a dream, she stepped back, and allowed the phantom currents to recede.

She turned once more toward the glow of the curtains and removed the shawl from around her shoulders and face, wiping the desert sand from her eyes. With painstaking care she combed through the knots in her hair and rearranged the folds of her ceremonial dress, small lines of beads cascading into place.

Quietly she approached the doorway, soundless and invisible as the ghosts of memories that were not her own. Another distance to cross, words rehearsed and discarded, another pulse of dread in her blood.

She reached the curtains and began to draw them back, but paused at the sound of his voice. The cloth absorbed his words, leaving only an impression of his face, a casual smile that did not touch his eyes. A moment later a woman's voice filtered through, light laughter and oversweet affection.

The weight of her dress began to suffocate. The gold bands on her arms and the bangles on her wrists felt as little more than costly shackles. She lowered her hand from the curtain and half-turned to leave when a bracelet slipped from her wrist.

The clang of metal striking the floor silenced all other sound.


	24. Chapter 24

The curtain was snatched back and a sword was at her throat. Her right hand froze at her hip, where she carried no weapon. Raeven stared at her with cold precise intent before the shock of recognition lit his eyes. He withdrew his blade and retreated a step, surprise turning to concern.

"What are you doing here?"

Behind him she caught a fleeting glance of silk skirts and bare feet darting into the corridor, out of sight. The sickness returned with its cloying grip, pulling her toward that dark expanse as if it were right beneath her.

The sharpness of his voice drew her back. "What are you doing here?" he repeated, stepping forward. Curiosity replaced concern as he took in her choice in garb.

"I was wrong before," she said, the shackles growing heavier under his searching gaze. "I've come to remedy that mistake."

He stared a moment longer. "Come inside."

He drew the curtains shut behind them and insisted that she sit and rest a moment, though she had no time to waste with small comforts. She accepted only a drink of water, refusing wine and any attention from servants. She had not intended for anyone to know of her presence tonight but him.

"You mean to tell me," he began evenly, "that you've changed your mind."

"Yes," she replied. "I was foolish and proud, thinking I could stand alone. I should not have refused you."

His expression remained neutral. "And what brought about this change of heart?"

"You know," she said.

All the rulers in the surrounding deserts knew, and were waiting behind their well-defended walls for the endgame to unravel from her choices. Raeven gave no sign of agreement or denial, waiting with the same noncommittal calm.

"Help me," she continued. "Stand by Agrabah now and I will give you everything that is mine to give."

He was silent as he thought over her words, perhaps wondering at her game. But she was not here to bargain. There was nothing left to bargain or to win. It was an unadorned plea of a kind he had never heard and she had never given.

"Please, Raeven," she whispered.

When he finally answered, it was as if he were carving words from marble, carefully chosen with the knowledge of their permanence.

"I will be candid with you, as I have always been. When we last met, I meant the words I spoke to you. I offered those promises in full sincerity, though I suspect you still disbelieve me.

"Consider this: as the sultan of Desrial I had my choice of other kingdoms with greater wealth, greater power, greater strategic significance, but I decided upon Agrabah over them. I chose you over them. I have always felt affection for you, Jasmine, as distant as we may have grown since we were children. You might imagine the protests my advisors put up over my decision, and the humiliation I endured following your rejection. If you are not yet convinced, consider this also: your list of enemies was growing by the day, beginning with servants within your own court who sought to poison you. The alliances Agrabah enjoyed under your father's reign were crumbling one by one. And you were a widow. But still I chose you.

"Had you said yes then, it would have bound our kingdoms together in a sacred oath, and you would have had my protection in any circumstances. I had been willing to take on the burdens of your kingdom, the many enemies you had amassed with your naïve arrogance and scorn for diplomacy. I considered it your bride price, high as it was.

"But as it is now, I cannot help you. This new enemy you have made is yours, not mine. This war you have called down upon Agrabah is yours to fight, not mine. Indeed, had you accepted me, I would not have allowed you to doom your kingdom with such a poor string of decisions. And now it is not my place to intervene, as much as it pains me to see you suffer. I am sorry."

She reached forward and grasped his hand, looking into his eyes. She felt the strings of beads in her dress strain and snap as she moved to kneel before him.

"Please," she said again. "I know I have been a fool. I would turn back and change it in an instant if I could. I will give you my hand if you still wish it, or up to half the kingdom if you ask. I beg you. Tessur's troops will reach Agrabah in a matter of days. They will march right past Desrial's gates. I beg you to stop him. You are the only one who can."

He shook his head sadly, sealing her request in its grave. "I cannot send my men to die for your mistakes. You have a jinni, do you not? Can you not make use of it?"

She did not answer as she stood slowly, fallen beads digging into the soles of her feet. Another bracelet slipped from her wrist but she caught it in her palm, gripping it tightly until the encrusted jewels bruised her skin. He caught her shoulder and turned her toward him, cupping her face in his hands. He kissed her softly, a gesture of apology and guilt. Guilt she imagined would haunt him as he watched her enemies sweep past his gates, the dust from their footfalls clouding the air of his kingdom.

He pressed his lips to her brow and held her tightly in his arms. Closing her eyes, she allowed the embrace to linger, remembering for a brief moment the permanence of another farewell.

"May the gods protect you," he whispered, and opened the curtains to let her pass.


	25. Chapter 25

Aladdin frowned, turning the sage's question over in his head. She knew that look. He was determined not to give ground, to hold fast to what he had always believed. Yet the options before him made that impossible.

"I would save the child," he said at last. "The man's lived longer and experienced more of life. The child has hardly had a chance."

"Very well," the philosopher replied. "So it is a fair chance at a decent life and longevity that determines your choice."

"Yes," Aladdin said. She knew that look as well. He sounded more certain than he felt.

"Now imagine you must choose between a child and ten men. The same house is engulfed in flames. A child is trapped in one room. Ten men are trapped in another. You only have time to open one door and allow the occupants to escape before the house collapses. Whom would you save?"

Aladdin paused for a longer time.

"I would open both doors to save the child and the men, and sacrifice myself."

"It is physically impossible to reach both doors before the house collapses. It is a large house," the sage countered with a light smile.

"Then…I would still save the child."

"For the same reason as before?"

"Yes."

"You would forsake ten men to save one child."

"…Yes."

The courtyard was quiet at dusk, the air beginning to cool as night approached. She knew Aladdin was not satisfied with his own reasoning, still mulling over his choice as if this were a riddle with a secret answer.

"Now imagine there are a hundred men."

Aladdin raised one eyebrow, a touch of humor in his voice. "Has the house turned into a palace now?"

"It is a large house," the sage returned. "Whom would you choose?"

"The child," he said stubbornly.

"A thousand men, then? Ten thousand? The men of an entire nation?"

"I know what you're getting at. But I don't know where the line is. It's not at ten. A hundred…maybe. I spoke too soon before. It's somewhere between ten and a hundred."

The philosopher nodded. "Now, imagine that instead of ten men, it is your wife who is trapped in the other room."

Aladdin looked at Jasmine, and she said nothing, knowing they had both considered this choice in different variations before. They had come close to death often enough to ponder the question, though neither of them had spoken it aloud.

"Now this choice is easy," he said with forced cheer. He grasped her hand tightly. "Of course I would save my wife. How could I live without her?"

"You mean to speak in jest, young master. But in your heart it is true. You would indeed save her," the man said, his gaze unwavering. "But why? Why is your wife worth more than an innocent child, who is in turn worth more than nearly a hundred men?"

"Because I love her," Aladdin said simply. "That's all the reason I need."

"She has had many more times her fill of life than the child, has she not? She has enjoyed luxuries that most people cannot imagine in their loftiest dreams. Is it not unfair for her to live while the child dies?"

"It's different. Love changes the equation."

"Her life against a thousand men, then? Her life against the kingdom?"

"This is all hypothetical. In real life this wouldn't happen."

"Nonetheless, what is your answer?"

"I don't know," Aladdin said tersely. "In real life I wouldn't have to make that choice. We have allies and friends who would prevent that from happening. And even if it meant giving up my own life, I would make it so that both would live."

The sage smiled sadly. "That is not the way of life, young master. Friends can be taken away, or they may desert you. No ally is permanent or invincible, not even a jinni."

"I could still sacrifice myself."

"A man can only make that sacrifice once. What will you do when you face a thousand burning houses, where new fires spring from the ashes of the old? For this is the burden a king must bear."

"It's not like every choice is life or death," Aladdin argued. He turned to Jasmine. "How many times has your father had to decide something like that?"

"All that I have meant to show you is that you must be prepared to decide," the teacher said gently. "When you are faced with such a choice alone, without friends or allies at your back and without wise counselors to aid you, you must still choose, and swiftly, lest the child and the kingdom and the one you love are all destroyed by your indecision."

The man turned to her then, and she saw the question in his kind, wizened face before he spoke it.

"And you, Princess? Whom would you choose?"


	26. Chapter 26

The sea was the color of the night and made no sound beneath them. One moment she could reach down and brush her hand against the spray of the waves. The next, they were high in the sky, as close to the stars as they had been the first night they had flown like this. The wind was silent as well. His voice was the only sound she could hear. The soft, familiar song wound on, warm and steady, resonating through the world around them.

They would reach the desert soon and return home to the comfort of their bed. She did not ask him how far it would be. She knew he had flown here once and trusted that he remembered the way.

Yet the song began again, and there was no sight of land. The smell of salt was strong. She grasped his hand and the song stuttered, slowing, and suddenly the ocean was right beneath them. Pressed close against the roiling, silent waves, she could not see the horizon.

She leaned into him urgently, trying to shake him out of his stupor, but he stared straight ahead, lips moving in soft recitation. She dug her hands into the carpet and pulled up, desperately hoping it would change course before they plunged into the sea. It lurched suddenly and threw her onto her back, dangerously close to the carpet's edge, and the dark sky filled her vision. Overhead the stars were winking out one by one like vanishing blades. Before she could right herself, the carpet collapsed as lifeless fabric beneath them, and she slipped into empty air. Her frantic hands found no purchase, and she caught a glimpse of him falling beside her before the water rose up like a jagged wall, the crack of flesh and bone shattering in an instant—

She awoke with a choked scream.

The smell of salt was strong. She dragged herself upright, hands combing deep into her hair, nails digging into her scalp. She could not see in the dark, could barely make out the sheets tangled around her legs. Air passed shallow and quick through her lungs as if she were still falling, the wind snatching away her breath.

She carried a lamp to the balcony and lit the sconces. The twin swords trembled in her grip. She fought to keep them still and straight, breathing in measured paces, practicing each movement as an elementary form of control. The first swing was fast, brutal, ringing. She stumbled to the side, her hearing unbalanced as if submerged in the sea. She struck again, faster, imagining the air as the refracting light of a star, a shifting white spark captured at the point of her blade.

Again. She stepped forward, closer to the dark, away from the fires she had lit. She could see nothing in the sky. There was no moon, only a handful of stars. She parried an invisible foe and struck at his heart, killing him in an instant. More took his place. The vanguard of her enemies. She struck at them all, wild and precise at the same time, fighting them with the desperation of one who could not see land. There were hundreds, thousands of them. They stretched on and on, and she inevitably slowed, breathless and aching, dizzy with the motion of the waves.

The scent of salt drove her to her knees. A sharp clang of metal rang in her ears, the swords clattering on marble. She gritted her teeth and tasted water, drops of a lukewarm ocean. She clamped a hand over her mouth, biting into the palm to stifle the first sob. With her other hand she fumbled for a sword and gripped it clumsily, slamming it point-first into the floor beside her. It glanced off and scraped across stone. She grabbed the other and did the same. She struck at the floor again and again, stabbing straight down to hear the clang and feel the killing blow like a torrent into her hands up through her arms into her shoulders, ebbing near her throat. There was sound now, and salt.

When she could no longer lift a sword to strike, she let both blades fall to her sides. The scars in the stone were lifeless, already permanent. There would be no transference.

Carpet came at her call, and she said nothing as they left the city, setting their direction with her line of sight alone. The swords rested against her back, a cold comforting weight. She waited for Carpet to signal their arrival, as reluctant as it was to obey her command. Only it could see the difference in the sand, but she remembered the difference in the air. Still, dead. Watched.

Carpet slowed when she expected, and she drew her swords. Below, the desolate city began to stir. She imagined a hundred hollow eyes like starving stars, aware and waiting, weapons raised in bony hands to greet her arrival.

"There," she whispered, her gaze riveted on the narrow cliffs and the tower at their crest. "Go there."


	27. Chapter 27

The vast throne room was empty save for the two of them, a hushed chamber built on death and dormant otherworldly power. It was the latter she wanted, the near limitless power concentrated in his right hand.

He watched her with cool calculation from his throne, measuring the swords on her back against the absence of allies. She had met no resistance entering the citadel, a sign of his curiosity toward her purpose and of his low regard of her abilities. He seemed to have forgotten that she had defeated him soundly with less than what she was armed with now. But there was no time to waste on petty validation.

Her voice was dry, parched, but it carried clear and adamant in the dead air. He listened with the same aloof intent, his expression revealing nothing as she gave her terms. She stood silent when she finished, waiting for his answer and the beginning of their parley.

He began differently. "First, I believemy condolences are long overdue. It must have been difficult for you to bear the loss of both your father and your husband in the same day. My…differences…with Aladdin aside, he was a worthy adversary." He smiled. "I only regret I was the not the one to end his life."

She narrowed her eyes, and his smile grew marginally at the sight of her stifled anger. She wondered just how long he had been waiting.

"I am sorry for the losses you have suffered," he continued. "They have been heavy indeed, and in such a short span of time."

"Get to the point," she said coldly. "The terms."

"I don't know if you are even aware of the extent of what you have lost and what there is to mourn. How he would have mourned if he could see you now…"

The first strike, lazy and slow because he could not miss. She took a step forward, one hand closing around a sword hilt.

"…at the end of your line, having brought mishap after misfortune on your beloved kingdom, a witch in the eyes of your people, a hopeless fool in the eyes of your enemies. And now, this."

He stood from his throne with casual grace, ignoring the metallic slide of her swords from their sheaths. Before he could move forward she was face to face with him, a curved blade pressed against his chest. He tilted his head in mock curiosity, the gauntlet slack at his side.

"And now, this indeed," he said softly. His left hand reached up to touch her face, and she blocked it with the flat of her other sword. A look of mild confusion crossed his features. "I don't quite understand this contradiction. After all, your terms—"

"You will turn Tessur's armies away from Agrabah," she said. "Those are the terms."

"Ah." He leaned forward into the blade, ignoring the slow tear of fabric and her unyielding gaze. "If I didn't know better, I'd say this is turning into a threat."

"It just might be." She slid the sword up toward his throat. "Now if you—"

"Princess. Or should I say, _Sultana_," he spoke into her ear, "do you honestly think that my power can be bought at the price of a whore?"

The swordpoint met his chin and then she found she could move no further. She glimpsed the telltale glow of the gauntlet before her swords slid out of her frozen grip and clattered down the steps of the throne. He leaned forward further, breath ghosting across her cheek as another spell sealed the air in her lungs.

"Do you think that the man you've asked to turn back an army of eighty thousand can't fend off a little girl playing with swords?" Languidly he traced an artery in her neck, fingers cold against her skin. "That I can't take whatever I might want from you, right now?"

She could not move or speak an answer, merely waiting for him to finish the round of petty retaliation. He waited until her vision began to blur before releasing her, pushing her back contemptuously with one hand. She stumbled to her knees, gathering breath into starved lungs.

He considered her for a moment as she glared up at him in silence. "I see. I suppose that was clever. I daresay I have missed our little fights."

"You miss winning them," she rasped.

He laughed dryly. "The ones that were an actual challenge, yes. But we digress. Your time is short, isn't it? Let me tell you how this game will be played."

She stood shakily and met his eyes as he laid out his price in succinct, unwavering terms, as easily as she had once delivered the sentences of her enemies.

She was silent when he finished. He gestured to her fallen weapons. "Tidy up this little mess and go home. Consider carefully before you decide, as this is the only offer I will make. Though I do believe you can't afford to dally too long." A faint, measured smile. "Time is of the essence, after all."


	28. Chapter 28

The city was restive as a sleeper mired in insomnia. Distant flames of torches lit the dark maze of streets, disparate lines moving steadily outward like constellations drifting apart. The soul of the kingdom was escaping in a slow exhale, scattering across the Deserts to seek fissures where it could be sealed.

She watched from high above in the palace as the mass exodus of the populace continued deep into the night. These past days and nights Genie and Eden had expended all their power to guide her people to safety, which grew ever more elusive the closer the enemy drew to Agrabah. There were pitifully few kingdoms in the surrounding Deserts that still dared to receive Agrabanian citizens and risk Tessur's wrath.

She felt the slight breeze of his presence when he returned, and said nothing as he came to stand beside her at the balustrade. His exhaustion was tangible. Tonight, less than half the kingdom still remained. Tomorrow, it would have to be less than a quarter.

The marble was cold underneath her palms, and the silence of the city no longer tasted of veiled dissent, but of barren desolation.

"Have you seen this happen before?" she asked quietly.

Her friend took a long time to respond. Perhaps even jinnis found it difficult to remember things better left forgotten, though by their nature they could forget nothing.

"There's never been anyone like you, Jas," he said. His voice was sad and wistful, as if he were once again bound by the law of his nature, held back at the edge of its breaking.

"You've seen kingdoms rise and fall. War and famine, rebellions, conquest. You must have caused some of it as well."

He did not answer, his presence hardly a wisp beside her when it had once stretched so large and bright, a blue sun in their hearts.

"But this," she said. "A kingdom fracturing from within and merely waiting for its enemies to finish its collapse, for this one reason. The third thing that the Seven Deserts have never seen."

Another long pause, and it seemed the stars moved faster than the thoughts between them. Slow, leaden and deliberate, because they had already arrived at a conclusion. There was only the question of how to speak and craft it into memory.

"You should leave, Genie. You've seen enough things that shouldn't have happened, things that are bound to happen, and what I have to do. You should leave before you're no longer free."

The words were brambles in her throat and she imagined scars. She turned with a level gaze toward her friend, taking his hands and brushing the gold shackles that tonight were still mere ornaments.

"He chose to set you free over everything else. It's the least I can do."

Somehow the sadness in his eyes seemed to turn a different shade, a color she could not name but was as real and infinite as his memory. He shook his head.

"Freedom is an illusion," he said. "We learned that only when the man who gave it to us died. But I won't let you face this alone."


	29. Chapter 29

The attack was sudden and unpredicted, but she should have seen it coming. It was a plain, deadly truth she had ignored: the most potent enemies bided their time to exact vengeance.

Overnight the water in the entire kingdom had turned into a wellspring of poison. By mid-morning the number of dead had risen to over six hundred. By noon the outcry in the streets could be heard in the inner rooms of the palace. They had no medicines to counter the poison or the excruciating pain it wrought upon its victims before they fell into delirium and death. It was all they could do to seal the wells as Eden ferried in water from distant sources and her guards rationed it strictly among the households that remained. Genie confirmed what she already knew. The poison was imbued with elemental magic.

It was her mistake, a mistake that had cost her kingdom dearly, an attack no doubt intended to shatter the last of her defenses on the eve of an Eriasan invasion. The wails of widows and dying children resonated through the walls, through her veins, as if the poison had replaced her blood. She had to set it right. She would set this right with her own hands, quickly and without mercy, as she should have done a year ago with an airless, watery grave. And then she would end the war approaching her doorstep, as she should have done two nights ago without sentiment or hesitation.

She tied her hair in a tight braid, leaving not a single loose strand to impede her vision or movement. She took her swords and strapped several more blades over skintight clothing. But these were not real weapons. They never had been. She turned to face Genie.

"You will find her and take me there. I need to be able to breathe underwater. And I need your power," she stated.

His silence was too long, as if they were still on her balcony with time to mourn the past and weave illusory promises of the future.

"Give it to me," she commanded.

He shook his head, unable to meet her eyes.

She would have drawn her swords at that moment. She would have threatened him, a staunchly loyal friend who had never and would never turn his back on her, a precious remnant of the idyllic life she had once had. But such an act would have been useless. One could not threaten a jinni.

"Then stay and get my people out of the city. Do not follow me."

He started two words into a plea or an explanation or an apology. This time her sword cut the air between them, her knuckles white over the hilt.

"Do not. Follow. Me."

She flew over the city as if fire were consuming the air behind her, not looking back or below. The agonized cries of her people still resounded in the fabric of the carpet long after she had departed the familiar sands of the Seven Deserts and once again approached a land many shades darker.

There was an older truth about enemies, perhaps the most well-known of them all. She had always been blind to it for a reason. Now that reason was dead, and she would look upon it fully.


	30. Chapter 30

"Two names instead of one," he said contemplatively. "That warrants a higher payment."

"Take it," she said. "Now."

He studied her with clinical coldness, eyes gliding over the dark attire she had meant to wear to battle, the impassive face that gave away nothing in surrender.

"You understand that once this is settled, there is no turning back."

"I'm certain," she said. "Get on with it."

Nothing changed in his gaze, but the air around him seemed to increase in gravity as he rose from his throne and approached her. A scroll appeared and unfurled in midair between them, filled with elegant script and a space that stretched empty and waiting at the bottom.

He drew a short knife from his sleeve and cut his palm, letting his blood drip onto the parchment. The material hissed as if burning, and curls of smoke drifted from the new text etched from his blood. He turned the hilt of the blade toward her, but she drew her own sword and followed suit in one efficient movement. Her blood fell beside his and she watched the strokes of her name darken to crimson, binding her irrevocably to the only path that could save her people. And she braced herself for what he had warned would come next.

In an almost tender gesture he brushed her face with gloved fingers as a searing, piercing pain like she had never known flooded every inch of her body, blazing deep within like a fire fusing her bones with her flesh.

Beneath the screams and scorching blood clawing at her throat, she felt the dull impact of her body hitting the floor. His voice was faint, somewhere above her, and she imagined dry laughter, a shallow film of dark power crackling the air.

"Just a little longer, Sultana, and you will have what you asked for."


	31. Chapter 31

Before dawn, she rose and waited. From her vantage point, she could not see the horizon. Dust from the footfalls of eighty thousand soldiers and their mounts had obscured half the sky as the first pale light bled from a hidden sun.

When they had drawn close enough for their banners to be visible, they halted their unrelenting march without preamble. Perhaps to wait for her capitulation, or to discern in the long ensuing silence whether the city was indeed empty and undefended as had been rumored.

The eerie quiet continued into midday as the vanguard approached, seasoned riders with the speediest horses and strongest constitution. A solid wall of swords and spears advanced toward the gates. When they were within a bowshot's distance, they suddenly halted again, and she could just make out the stumbling movements of their spooked mounts. It was clear they had not stopped by choice.

After some deliberation, they retreated a short distance and charged, but their weapons were turned aside jarringly as they ran up against an invisible barrier once more, horses skittish at the feel of powerful magic. They withdrew in tense confusion, plainly uncertain as to how to overcome the unexpected obstacle. And she confirmed that the only risk she had feared in the plan was unfounded. The mukhtar was not with them, and whatever power it had sold to Tessur was only enough to guard against jinnis, not this form of magic.

Hours later, the entire kingdom was surrounded, half of the army massed in a teeming ring around the perimeter. Her eyes followed the curving paths of individual arrows within the massive volleys loosed by the archers, all deflected like rain pattering against a vast curved shield. Then came the catapults, loaded with flaming pitch and shattered masonry, no doubt collected along the army's path of destruction through the Seven Deserts. Again, the barrier held.

The quiet had long since broken, cut through with the proud, determined shouts of men who had known only victory before this. Now the air simmered with barely checked anger, like the fuming of a spoiled child who could not have what he wanted. She imagined the troops had come to embody the mood of their leader and sovereign, a man who had yet to show his face. A thorough coward hiding behind his wall of soldiers, perhaps fearing that she had devised some way to kill him before his victory could be sealed.

Daylight faded to dusk, and the ring of deadly intent around the kingdom thickened to the full eighty thousand. Fires were lit and horses dismounted, metal clanging intermittently as men set down their armor and weapons to rest. A standoff, to be concluded the next day, or however long it would take for the barrier to weaken and fall, or for whoever remained in the city to starve to death.

She watched the shadows lengthen from the walls as the sun sank steadily toward the earth, the horizon still obscured by the dust of premonition. The eerie silence from the predawn hours returned, settling over the barren kingdom and the thousands of restless bodies at its doorstep.

She waited.


	32. Chapter 32

At midnight, the silence broke.

She listened from the comfort of a divan, lying awake and facing the open air outside. The moon and stars were not enough to see by, and the fires of the camp were too far.

She listened for the change in the air, from neutral slumber and vague dreams of victory to muddled wakefulness and confusion. The metallic ring of swords drawn from their sheaths, weapons raised against an unseen ambush. A pause, followed by scattered shouts of alarm as the first of them realized what was wrong.

And soon after that, terror.

x.x.x

In her years of training, she had grown used to the sharp, ringing sound of metal striking metal, a deadly comfort of certainty and precision.

Upon waking, an army of men had drawn their swords. But what followed was not a cacophony of blades clashing in that familiar dance.

It was too low to discern at first, drowned out by the cries of shock and fear. But when she closed her eyes she could hear it. First, the sound of blades slashing through skin, tearing fabric. The dull thud of metal encountering bone thinly encased in flesh. And then, beneath it, the steady, relentless drone of hungering throats, issued from mouths gaping wide and closing fast.

Pain took on a new sound and color. Not the searing fire that had burned through her body or the sharp sting of a blade wound. But the grotesque, lunging crawl of death over skin broken by teeth, limbs twisted and snapped by cold viselike hands, flesh clawed apart and mangled by yellowed nails.

Through the hours of the night the screams tapered to sobs, pleas distilled to garbled wet moans. And as the cries of her enemy faded, the sounds of feeding grew.

x.x.x

She watched the sun rise over the empty city and the desolate sands beyond its gates. The army and its countless campfires and the wide swath of fallen arrows and scattered siege weaponry had vanished, as if they had never come to her doorstep. The only sign that anything had transpired here was the faint cloud of dust on the horizon. The five thousand that had been permitted to escape, among them the prince who had started this war.

Returning to her chambers, she came to stand before the mirror and studied the reflection of her thin, austere frame. She fingered the string of glistening scales around her neck, and traced the fan of white hollow needles hanging as a charm. The bones of the sea, he had said. His first gift to her, for what she had endured.


	33. Chapter 33

Gradually her people returned to the city from the scattered refuges they had found. They were fewer and more somber than before, still remembering the days of uncertainty, the potent question of whether their kingdom had been cursed since the death of their last sultan. Never before had Agrabah's long-time allies withdrawn from it as one. Never before had they faced the threat of complete annihilation at the hands of a foreign army. Never before had their people died by the thousands from poisoned water in every well.

And never before had a conquering army vanished into thin air before a kingdom guarded by one woman.

The news of the war's abrupt end had spread like a sandstorm across the Deserts. Eighty thousand fighting men reduced to five thousand, and the five reduced further to one over the long journey back to Erias. Most of the survivors had died from festering wounds that led to a terrifying form of madness no one had ever seen before – a mindless compulsion to tear apart one's comrades and feed upon their bodies. It was rumored that the prince himself had willingly lost a limb to stave off the madness.

She watched the life slowly returning to her kingdom each day, remembering the things she had missed. The bustling noise of the marketplace, the scents of spice carts and cooked meats, the festive colors of new marriages and births, the laughter of children in their innocence.

She held court daily and listened to her people, hearing their disputes big and small, pleas for justice and absolution, appeals for her blessing. She strove for fairness, not severity or mercy, and always for patience. For more than a year she had waited for the pulse of her people to grow steady again, for their eyes to see her as she was.

Blindness had no easy cure. But there were many things she could not have done. She had done them nonetheless.

x.x.x

Most nights her sleep was sound and dreamless, with no echoes of old songs or forgotten words. Sometimes she lay awake, tracing the patterns of stars in the sky outside her open door, and watched the slow steady trickle of sand in the small object beside her bed.

The grains of the hourglass fell in rhythm with her heartbeat, a gentle march through wakefulness and slumber, their short journey infinitesimal and sure.


	34. Epilogue

Epilogue

His arms tightened around her in sleep, sending a sharp stab through her stomach. Salt welled in her eyes and she bit back a gasp of pain, finding his hand in the dark and squeezing gently.

He came awake with a start and let go of her immediately, filled with the fresh tension of a nightmare.

"Jasmine."

"I'm here," she said, turning gingerly to face him. Tears drained into her pillow and she rubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes. The skin across her abdomen burned, stretched painfully with movement. She resisted the urge to trace the raised bandage over the long jagged scar. The fire could only die gradually on its own.

"I'm sorry," he said, pressing his lips to her brow. He hesitated, afraid to hold her again, and chose to retreat to the balcony.

She lay alone, watching his silhouette shift as he paced without direction, not standing still for more than a minute, one hand listlessly tapping some unknown march on the balustrade. She waited until the fire cooled to stand and join him.

He met her halfway with admonishment and a steadying hand. Her left leg was still weak as well, the bone only partially healed after the fall. She accepted his help without complaint, leaning her head against his shoulder, arms loose around his waist.

"I'm okay. I'll be completely fine with a little more time."

He shook his head and she felt the dormant anger stirring in his chest, claws prickling his every breath.

"You almost died," he said softly. "This isn't like before."

She knew this was a new breed of fear, one they could not magic away and forget as easily as all victories past. They had both suffered their share of injuries defending the kingdom and each other, had danced on the edge of death with abandon. But for him to see her take the blow meant for him, a slash of a corsair's scimitar and a stumbling fall from a high cliff, to be a step behind instead of ahead as he had always been – it put everything to the question, filling his sleep with her death and his days with his own haunted solitude. Imagining his life bereft of the woman he had just married, bereft of an heir, bereft of his title and every claim to authority he had gained through her.

"I'm alive," she repeated the reassurance, still waiting patiently for him to accept it. "I won't leave you."

"What would I do without you?" he whispered into her hair.

The kingdom lay as an intricately woven quilt under the stars, their people in slumber, protected as always in blissful ignorance. Few knew of their princess' state of health, that she had nearly lost her life defending them again, though questions would inevitably be raised when she appeared before them, dressed in clothing that hid her scars.

"You'd do what you have to do," she answered. "And you'd live."


	35. Afterword (Updated)

Afterword

(A small note - it seems that several reviewers have misunderstood the epilogue. If it seems off or out of character to you, you are probably thinking of the wrong man. PM me if you're confused.)

I just realized this is the first multi-chapter storyline I have ever finished. I don't count Antiphony since that series is not complete.

It feels strange, like I've closed a box and will never open it again. Even in the process of writing this, sometimes I would look back on previous chapters and feel like someone else had written them. It was a continuous process of casting out ideas, emotions and combinations of words and tying them off permanently. I could not write this again.

I often questioned my motives in writing this. Antiphony and Chrysolite were dark but I knew what I was doing and what I wanted to say. This is something of a different shade and feel. There's an oppressiveness and despair to it that I didn't have the heart or courage to explore before. And now having explored them, I am still not sure why. I'm not sure what I am supposed to feel as a reader either, or if there is simply no "supposed to."

So, if you enjoyed this fic, or you hated it, or it made you feel uncomfortable, I would appreciate your thoughts on these questions that I don't know the answer to. And one day, when the questions have settled, I'll probably take this afterword down.

Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. Often the only impetus I needed to finish the next chapter was a few encouraging words from a reader.

Thanks to Lebnaniya, ForeverACharmedOne, Eccentrifuge, and Asj Johnson for their generous help in revising several chapters.

Shoutout to J. Merritt for her amazing fanart of Chapter 26.

And as always, thanks to demonegg for listening, reading, and keeping me writing, one small chapter at a time.


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